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You want to pay attention to comfort and weight of the knife... Personally for me, unless i am doing some coarse chopping (herbs mostly) i have been staying away from the heavier knives... think henkels, wustoffs, and so forth... i love henkels, but the more and more i used it, idk it became tiring almost

back a few months ago i tested out some Shun's and never looked back... picked out a few knives for christmas and have been loving them ever since.... by far the best knives i have ever used. My first impression... when you go to a store to take a look at them, hold them, do a "trial run" of how it is going to feel cutting.. don't be suprised when they feel a lot lighter than what you are used to... however once you take that bad boy home and start cutting things up, it will all make sense

8" Chef's
6" Gokujo Boning
3.5" Paring
Honing Steel
And i wanted the Shun Knife case since I cook at a lot of different places
The other two knives are from Morty the Knife Man, clam and oyster shuckers

Soon to come.... 7" Santuko and a set of steak knives because i wanna be a baller in the kitchen lol

As far as knies going blunt after a couple months.... go here http://www.chefknivestogo.com/vitu.html
Great info on how knives are sharpened and there are some good tips on how to keep a knife sharp.

1. Never store it in a draw unless it is in its own sleeve, this is probably one of the worst ways to dull a knife
2. Never cut on anything besides wood or plastic, look up the Shun video on youtube that Alton Brown hosts, good info there... so don't cut on glass, ceramic, granite, etc...
3. Always wash by hand with a little soap and warm water... the consistent hot heat and chemicals in the dish washer will inevitably break down your edge
4. It costs $10-$15 to sharpen a knife... get them done at least once a year depending how much you use them

Learn to sharpen your own knives and that will solve 95% of your problems. Blade steel and manufacturing techniques are overrated. A crappy $15 Chicago Cutlery chef knife will work just fine if you sharpen it and touch it up periodically. I have Shun paring and utility knives, a Henckles santoku, an Al Mar japanese 8" chef knife, a Chicago Cutlery bread knife and a couple of steak knives that I use as utility knives. They're all great and work very well. The most important thing is just to keep them sharp.

You should buy a good V-shaped crock stick sharpener and learn to use it properly. Once you get a feel for the angles you will be able to sharpen free-hand. I do 90% of my sharpening on the bottom of a coffee cup. I only bust out my real sharpeners if I need to re-profile an edge or grind out a chip or something serious. People don't believe it when I can bring their dull crappy knives and scissors back to life with a coffee cup - but it works.

Learn to sharpen your own knives and that will solve 95% of your problems. Blade steel and manufacturing techniques are overrated. A crappy $15 Chicago Cutlery chef knife will work just fine if you sharpen it and touch it up periodically. I have Shun paring and utility knives, a Henckles santoku, an Al Mar japanese 8" chef knife, a Chicago Cutlery bread knife and a couple of steak knives that I use as utility knives. They're all great and work very well. The most important thing is just to keep them sharp.

You should buy a good crock stick sharpener and learn to use it properly. Once you get a feel for the angles you will be able to sharpen free-hand. I do 90% of my sharpening on the bottom of a coffee cup. I only bust out my real sharpeners if I need to re-profile an edge or grind out a chip or something serious. People don't believe it when I can bring their dull crappy knives and scissors back to life with a coffee cup - but it works.

lol... the bottom of a coffee cup?? please send me a pic of that i definitely believe it tho... as long as what you are using is hard, fine, and even all across, you could get away with sharpening a knife on it

i am going to get some sanding stones to practice on my other knives... i would love to learn how to sharpen knives

the shuns however... those they will sharpen for free, so i might as well take advantage of that until i am comfortable doing those on my own

lol... the bottom of a coffee cup?? please send me a pic of that i definitely believe it tho... as long as what you are using is hard, fine, and even all across, you could get away with sharpening a knife on it

i am going to get some sanding stones to practice on my other knives... i would love to learn how to sharpen knives

the shuns however... those they will sharpen for free, so i might as well take advantage of that until i am comfortable doing those on my own

The unpainted bottom of a coffee cup is basically the same ceramic material that you'll find in a real sharpener. Some cups are course, some are super fine.

When I grab a knife, the first thing I do is aim the edge directly at me and look to see if there are any shiny spots on the edge. If there's a shiny spot, it means that the edge is deformed enough to reflect light. I'll then do 5-10 quick swipes on the bottom of the coffee cup at about a 20 degree angle, alternating sides of the blade. You keep the edge facing towards the direction of travel and move the blade as if you're trying to slice off a piece of the cup. Keep the angle consistent.

I'll then use my fingernail to feel for a wire edge. A wire edge is where the edge of the blade has gotten so thin that it folds over every time you run it across the sharpener. You can feel this by scraping your fingernail down the side of the blade towards the edge. If it catches at all, there's a wire edge. A very gently swipe or two at 50 degrees will get rid of it. A blade with a wire edge will initially feel incredibly sharp, but the edge will soon fold over and performance will suffer.

For scissors you lay the blades flat against the cup and try to grind/polish away all the nicks and bumps. You then try to do the same with the skinny edge - keeping the edge flat to the cup and polishing them clean.

I'll then use my fingernail to feel for a wire edge. A wire edge is where the edge of the blade has gotten so thin that it folds over every time you run it across the sharpener. You can feel this by scraping your fingernail down the side of the blade towards the edge. If it catches at all, there's a wire edge. A very gently swipe or two at 50 degrees will get rid of it. A blade with a wire edge will initially feel incredibly sharp, but the edge will soon fold over and performance will suffer.

Those are the burrs that you are refering to (never heard of wire edge before lol, derp)... if you want a cool little trick, run the knive through a wine cork a couple times... surprisingly enough those will remove the burrs